Chapter 833 — Knocking the Ball Flying

Shen Yushu had finished her shot, and now it was Gu Mengyao's turn. This time Wei Zhao had properly reined in the magnitude of his energy, so Gu Mengyao's shot looked entirely unremarkable—nothing but a little extra force behind it.

Wei Zhao let out a breath of relief. When it came to handling this energy, he was getting rather handy at it.

Soon it was Shen Yushu's turn again, yet the earlier phenomenon did not recur—just another plain, ordinary shot. Zhen Yingjun breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed Shen Yushu really had pulled off that shot by blind luck, a dead cat landing on a dead rat. Otherwise, surely she would have hit another one like it this time.

At last it was Zhen Yingjun's turn. He felt smug. Judging by the arrangement of balls on the table, he would certainly clear them all in one visit! With his skill, this was child's play.

Taking his time, Zhen Yingjun picked out his first target, bent low over the table, and elegantly pushed his cue forward.

At the instant Zhen Yingjun's cue struck the cue ball, Wei Zhao channeled his energy into it.

The result: Zhen Yingjun's cue ball went "whoosh"—and shot clean off the table like a rocket launch! He had produced a magnificent jump shot.

Before anyone could quite react, the cue ball smacked into the face of a spectator with a loud "bang," instantly bloodying his nose and knocking out two of his front teeth. Stung by the pain, the man let out a howl, then glared and jabbed a finger at Zhen Yingjun, cursing, "You son of a bitch, are you blind? Where are you aiming? You've knocked your grandpa's front teeth loose!"

"Sorry, sorry, my apologies..." Though Zhen Yingjun was usually an arrogant sort, he knew well enough that he was in Songshan City now, not his own turf in Donghai. Stirring up trouble here was unwise; besides, he operated on the principle of courting women in a civilized manner, so he must not come off as crude. He could only apologize and pull out his wallet, counting out three thousand yuan for the man. "This is for medical expenses—consider it my compensation to you."

The man was a drifter with no job to speak of, and at the sight of three thousand yuan his eyes lit up at once. He took Zhen Yingjun's money and stopped complaining, standing off to the side with a hand clapped over his mouth.

Zhen Yingjun had no time to dawdle with these people now. His chief aim was to defeat Shen Yushu and Gu Mengyao, thereby proving that he was fit to teach them billiards—so he simply paid to smooth things over.

What rotten luck! Zhen Yingjun thought to himself. He really had been a bit hasty, carelessly putting too much force into the shot and sending the ball leaping into the air! Still, that jump shot was not something just anyone could pull off—he had done it without even trying, which was pretty damn impressive.

It seemed he had simply been careless and failed to gauge the force properly, which had brought about this situation. Next time he would have to be more conscientious!

"All right, my turn!" Shen Yushu, having waited for Zhen Yingjun to make a fool of himself, took a fresh cue ball and placed it on the table, ready to break.

Shen Yushu took aim at one of the balls, then struck!

It had to be said, though, that Shen Yushu had read the angle rather well. The cue ball struck one of her own suit of solids and sent it rolling; it looked certain to drop into a pocket, but because the force had been a touch too light, the ball reached the edge of the pocket and then ran out of steam.

"Go... go... go..." Shen Yushu grew anxious as she watched the ball slow more and more, about to stop right at the lip of the pocket.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly and fed in a bit of energy. At once the ball, which had been about to stop, seemed to have swallowed a shot of adrenaline and zipped into the pocket.

"Gah?" Zhen Yingjun had been gloating, all set to lecture Shen Yushu about the force required in billiards—just look at that ball, a little more power and it would have dropped, but Shen Yushu's weak stroke had produced exactly this result.

Yet Zhen Yingjun had never imagined that Shen Yushu's ball could suddenly summon its strength just before stopping and dash straight into the pocket! What on earth was going on? Had someone tampered with it?

But that was impossible—so many people were gathered around the table. If Shen Yushu had pulled some trick, surely someone would have noticed. And even if others could not, he himself had been staring at that ball the whole time—how could he have missed anything amiss?

"Wahahahaha!" At the sight of the ball dropping into the pocket, Shen Yushu was so delighted that she danced about: "I told you I'm the billiards prodigy Shu! See? One ounce more force would have been wasted, one ounce less and it would have been for nothing—this was just exactly right, no more, no less!"

Gu Mengyao had sensed something off earlier. How could a billiards ace like Zhen Yingjun suddenly produce such an absurd shot? And hit a bystander with it, no less?

And then look at Shen Yushu's shot—it had clearly been about to stop, yet it suddenly moved again and ran into the pocket of its own accord. Gu Mengyao could not help but suspect that Wei Zhao was behind all of it! Though she did not know how he did it, she knew well enough how remarkable Wei Zhao was.

"That shot of yours was actually quite risky!" Zhen Yingjun could only say. "Honestly, it was a close call—next time, better to use a bit more force!"

"A little bigger? Like you, hitting someone in the face?" Shen Yushu shot Zhen Yingjun a look and retorted.

"Gah!" Zhen Yingjun's face flushed crimson at Shen Yushu's jab. He gritted his teeth, gave a humph, and said nothing more.

It was Gu Mengyao's turn. She, too, took a casual shot. This was in fact her first time playing billiards, and she had no skill to speak of. But since she already knew Wei Zhao was helping, she was sure he would pull something at just the right moment.

The ball Gu Mengyao struck had no chance of going in. Yet in its course it knocked into another ball, and that ball happened to be of her own color. Judging by its trajectory, Wei Zhao calculated that it could sink. So only after the first ball had come to a stop did he feed it a measure of energy. Just like Shen Yushu's ball, this one seemed about to run out of momentum, then abruptly started moving again and rolled straight into the pocket.

This time Zhen Yingjun was truly dumbfounded. What was going on here? A paranormal event? For there was no other explanation. To say someone had rigged it was hardly plausible either—everyone was standing right at the edge of the table, and no one could have touched the balls on it. How could anyone have cheated?